Syria slams US support for ISIS as Turkey restarts bombing

SYRIA’S Foreign Ministry accused the United States of a “war crime” and “direct support to terrorism” on Thursday night over its bombing of government troops fighting Isis.

The US-led coalition bombed Syrian volunteer militia just east of the city of Deir Ezzor, where the army lifted a three-year Isis siege last year. The US claimed the Syrians had attacked their Kurdish YPG allies.

The Foreign Ministry condemned the “brutal massacre against Syrian popular forces which were confronting Daesh, which still maintains a presence under the protection of the coalition and its militias.”

The ministry renewed its demand for the United Nations and the world to dissolve the “illegal” coalition, which is “a force of protection and support to terrorism.”

French President Emmanuel Macron appeared today to repeat his foreign minister’s unfounded claims on Wednesday that the Syrian government had carried out chlorine gas attacks on civilians.

Mr Macron’s statement stepped back from directly blaming Syria for the alleged attack, reported by pro-insurgent sources in Britain.

But in a phone call ahead of their forthcoming meeting, he urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to “do everything” so that Syria’s government stops "intolerable degradation of the humanitarian situation” in Eastern Ghouta and Idlib provinces.

Meanwhile, Turkish forces resumed their bombing of YPG positions in north-western Afrin canton, while in Turkey itself, the co-chairwoman of the pro-Kurdish HDP party and 16 other campaigners were arrested for condemning the Afrin offensive.

Serpil Kemalbay became the latest leader of the party to be detained, after her fellow co-chair Selahattin Demirtas was jailed last year on charges of supporting the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).